


Remember where we were?

by EnglandsGray



Category: Cars (Movies)
Genre: Humanized
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 14:36:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19889446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnglandsGray/pseuds/EnglandsGray
Summary: The folks of Radiator Springs get together the night of July 20th, 1969.





	Remember where we were?

**Author's Note:**

> A one-shot written in one day inspired by the anniversary of the moon landing.
> 
> I am currently very happily knee-deep in writing a lengthy historical fiction centred on the life of Doc Hudson. The characters in this piece feature in that story too, so I’m in part excited to share a sneak peak with anyone who might be interested to read my other work and part nervous of putting them out there! 
> 
> Never been so inspired as I have been while writing in this fandom, so thanks and love to everyone involved. 
> 
> Xx

They were the coolest couple in Radiator Springs.Neither grew up in the desert, their independent spirits leading them away from home to lives of self-taught skill and creativity.A showgirl and a painter, wandering artists, drawn to the road until it delivered them to the little Arizona town where they found a kind of love which trumped their wanderlust. 

In 1953, Ramone refused to paint Flo’s Cadillac.She accused him of being too good to sully himself associating with a girl like her.He put her straight.She was too good for the likes of him.They were married a year later, on July 20th, 1954.

They were the ones who rallied the town to install the neon which became its trademark, encouraged the local passion for cars and flew the flag for their hometown as it grew in popularity.They were the first to get a television set, the first to offer a seat on their couch for anyone who wanted to marvel at it or just wanted the company.The first to open their hearts and their home to anyone in need of the love they would have lavished on children if it had worked out that way. 

They were happy, and it was contagious.Everyone flowed into their wake whenever they cruised along Main Street, bright lights reflecting in shimmering paint and gleaming chrome.And everyone trouped into their home afterward, anytime there was something particular - or nothing particular - to celebrate. 

On the night of their 15th wedding anniversary, they shunned the spotlight in favour of getting their nearest and dearest of the townsfolk together to commemorate a more global event.

Flow bustled out the back door of the V8 cafe and across the backlot into her own kitchen door with another tray of chicken wings and waffles, drenched in syrup, balanced on her capable shoulders.Her peppermint and pink apron in place over the sparkly midnight fabric of the dress which clung to her curves and caused her husband to almost choke on his first beer of the evening, almost drop the bottle.She squeezed past him now, deliberately close, looking up to him through long lashes, over her shoulder and sharing the lustful, loving smile this prompted. 

“You’re all the stars, baby”, he brushed her cheek with his knuckles, touched his lips to the tip of her nose. 

Her heart swelled, still more when she took in the sight of the small room crammed with her favourite people. 

The Lawrence brothers and their adorable boy, the younger sporting an incredible hat fashioned from a hubcap and lots of tinkling washers, little scraps of copper carefully cut into stars.Their laughter was the loudest in the room, holding court with their newest or oldest favourite anecdote. 

Across the room, Lizzie and her husband Stanley also regaled their audience, twinkling, finishing one another’s sentences and batting each other’s arms affectionately, only no one was actually listening to them.They didn’t give that no never mind. 

The fire chief nicknamed Red took up half the sofa, Big Al the other half, the Sheriff squished in the middle, all three laughing along with Mater and his Dad, duty put to one side for the evening.Unless it called, of course. 

Flo landed the tray on her side table with a flourish, then paused.Sat to one side, on one of the folding seats Flo kept for nights like this, was Filmore.Quiet until you first exchanged a word or two, then plenty vocal on world affairs and protecting the planet.Protecting freedoms of all kinds.Flo liked him; he was an oddball, like them all. 

Over by the window, eyes flitting between the television set and the darkening street outside was the Sargent, with his gleaming boots and tough-cookie exterior.Sarge, everyone called him. 

Her eyes swept the contented room like they did every few minutes across her cafe.Their army boy and free spirit stood out to her like beacons, search lights which needed pointing in the right direction.She popped the top of a beer and swooped over to take the arm of the Sargent, handing him the drink with a smile, and steering him to the chair besides Filmore.

"Filmore”, she began, “weren’t you telling me the other day that this here space-rocket” - she indicated the television screen, where visuals showed a simulation of the Apollo 11 rocket blasting through the sky - “would run better on that, uh, what did you call it?”

“Alternative fuel, ma’am, s’the future...”

Sarge’s eyebrows had raised when Flo took his arm, they hadn’t lowered, and now looked somewhat fixed.

“Well, I wouldn’t know a thing ‘bout that, but the Sarge here knows his way around a vehicle or two.I’ll leave you boys to solve the oil crisis together, alright?...”

She turned with a smile and a wink, knowing full well that a pair of eyes were boring into her retreating back.

Opposites attract, fellas, she thought to herself.Give it time. 

Passing an armchair on her way back out to the kitchen she laid her hand on the upper arm of another old friend. 

“How ya doin’, Doc?”

The medic surfaced from whatever reverie he’d been lost in.Though he’d been smiling as if following the chatter around him, occasionally focusing on this face or that, Flo suspected he had actually slipped away to some far off place or time.He placed his hand over hers.

“Good.Thanks, Flo - for putting us all up.”

"Puttin’ up with y’all, y’mean?” She smiled, squeezed his arm and continued on her way, dodging the pinch Ramone aimed at her rear, only to turn and neatly slap his with the polishing cloth tucked in her belt. 

The contrast between the lively chatter inside and the stillness outside caught her attention as she stepped out, the soft desert summer night impossible to ignore.She paused a moment, took a deep breath, the air was warm, but the breeze made it fresh. 

As illuminated as their hometown was, it had nothing on the sky above her and she let her eyes roam across it’s expanse.The moon shone, bright and clear and it struck her in a way it hadn’t all that week while it had been all anyone could talk about, that this magical reflector in the sky was a real place, a little world of its own, and after tonight it would be a heck of a lot closer.She’d heard folks say they disliked the very the idea of space, found it creepy or frightening, the idea of leaving the surface of the Earth into the frozen nothing.Flo didn’t share their feelings.She liked the idea of those brave men and women reaching out to that little rock and bringing it in from the cold.Making a connection was everything.She’d loved that about being on stage in front of a crowd, loved it about running her cafe, loved finding those links.That was love, to her. 

Tanned arms wound around her middle, pulled her close and she felt the warmth and smelled the sweet smell of home in her lover’s arms.She leant her head back on his shoulder, closing her eyes as he pressed a kiss to her cheekbone.When she opened them again, the moonlight filled them, made the air sparkle.

“If I went up there, I’d bring it back for you”, Ramone said. “You deserve it.”

She hummed, smiling, swaying in his arms.

“I got everythin’ I need right here.”

“Everybody - hey, pipe down will’ya!” The Sheriff called over the din in the room, “must be gettin’ close now...”

A countdown had appeared on the screen, the simulation now showing a funny little landing vehicle like a tin-foil spider hovering over a cratered surface. 

Shushes ran around the room and attention focussed down. They all listened to the communications between the base and the craft, tense voices adding to the anticipation brought on by that counting clock.

All of a sudden, a little blonde something dashed from the kitchen door across the room and onto the Doctor’s lap.

“Whoa - hey, kiddo”, he said, hauling the child up by the shoulders so he could sit him properly on his knee, patting his back when the little boy wrapped his arms around his neck. 

“Sorry we’re so late, everybody...”

“Did we miss it?” The little blonde head spoke over the woman, whipped around to the screen, scrambling around on the Doc’s legs to see better.

“Shhhh, no, you didn’t miss it, but watch carefully now...”

Shrugging off her shawl the boy’s Mom sat on the arm of the chair now crowded by her son.

“Evening”, she whispered to the Doc, leaning to kiss his cheek before they both turned their gaze to the television. 

The countdown reached zero. The little model touched down, scorching the bobbly surface.But it was clear it’s real life counterpart had yet to achieve this deceptively simple task.Everyone fell quiet. Flo watched Doc Hudson’s careful, safe hands resting on the little one’s arms.Listened to his reassuring voice whispering in the child’s ear.He will remember this night forever. 

“... the eagle has landed!”

No doubting it then, the relief in the voices coming from the screen must have reached the hearts of everyone around that set and every television on Earth. 

Mater lead a standing ovation, only rising a fraction of a second before Sarge.Everyone joined in clapping and cheering.Ramone popped the cork of a bottle of champagne and Flo began handing out glasses. 

“Incredible”, Doc said. “To think a man only flew in an aeroplane for the first time, what, fifty years ago? To this...”

“Rockets are better than planes”, the little boy commented with the decisiveness of a four year old who knows all.

“How come?” Doc asked him.

“They’re faster.”

“Faster’s better?”

“Uh-huh.”

The boy leapt off his knee and began zooming a little toy rocket around the rug in front of the TV. 

“Boy after your own heart”, Daisy smiled. 

Doc had spotted the little blue and chrome die-cast in the boy’s other fist as soon as he appeared, though, so his faith in the child’s taste in modes of transport hadn’t faltered. 

Even a four year old couldn’t be so thrilled by space and all its wonder long enough to stay awake all night.He’d managed to see Armstrong take that step, managed a circuit of the room with Mater walking like marionettes in some kind of time-warp, imitating their new heroes in their space suits.Then he’d returned to the Doc’s lap, rocket toy discarded, car safely in the pocket of his sweater-vest, and fell asleep. 

Daisy stopped a few paces behind the Doc as he walked along the sidewalk.Goodbyes and thank-you’d exchanged, the party had broken up, and Daisy could see most of the lovely people she had just spent a lovely evening with training their eyes to the skies as they walked away, just as she was. 

Doc turned to her. “Y’alright?”

“Mmhmm”, she replied. “Looking at the man in the moon.”

He smiled at her, stroked her boy’s hair when he shuffled in his sleep on his shoulder. 

“Strange to think of so many people, all over the country, looking up at the same moon, right now”, she said. 

Doc lifted his eyes to the moon then.Didn’t seem so odd to him.He’d never admit to wondering if people, certain people, were looking up there when he was, but he did wonder.That silvery dot a shared marker in the world when you were thousands of miles apart.It struck him that those lonely souls up there right now were the only ones looking at the Earth.

The past felt so close but the future was already here.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. 
> 
> All credit and all love to Disney Pixar, to whom most of these characters and locations belong.


End file.
